The Internet Is Fighting Back Against Your AI Agent

0:00 As we are taping this pod, Anthropic is meeting with its investors in closed-door meetings to talk about going public. >> Meta turning on Muse as a consumer product and having such traction with it narratively and practically, but then also like their new models being good and competitive. This stuff is commodity. >> Plus Gemini launched all their new models, too. >> Everyone wants to launch all the things. And like the consumers are already at the point where like it just doesn't matter. Like this stuff is all good enough, which is classic race to the bottom. There is no lock-in. And then you have like the Anthropic and Open AI's like their whole pitch has been the infinity story of one company takes all because they can't possibly justify their existence if that's not true.

0:37 >> A solid 70% of my Muse use cases that I was so excited about do not work. >> I think it's very hard for startups to survive what's coming. >> >> Hello friends. Welcome to More or Less.

1:12 Did you miss me? I missed you guys. A week without More or Less is just sad. >> We did miss you. The boys were not unruly last week when I tried to moderate them. So thanks for coming back. >> But we got good comments on it. >> Yeah, people liked it. >> >> People seem to like it. >> People like the unruly boys. >> Okay. Boys gone wild. Well, I'm happy to be back. >> I'll take my shirt off. I have a whole pile of shirts over there.

1:35 >> Did you take your shirt off on the episode? >> No, I said I would take my shirt off. >> He has done that in former episodes. But And guys, today is Dave's birthday, so maybe he should take a shirt off. >> Happy birthday, Dave. >> Except for he's sick, so he won't do that. He's got a weird voice today. Sorry, y'all. >> Thanks, guys. >> Dave, you've got the October cold. >> Yeah, I just got the test back and I have a standard garden variety coronavirus, not COVID.

1:58 >> What is a garden variety? >> I guess that's what we used to call colds yeah, and flus. >> Don't you think we're going to cure the cold in the next 5 years? >> Isn't there like a thousand things? >> I would like to cure Lyme disease in the next 5 years personally if they cure something. >> Oh, it's happening. Trump made an executive order. >> Well, I'm actually happy to hear that. >> Trump made an executive order. There is no more Lyme disease.

2:20 >> It's called Lyme inconvenience. He just renamed it. >> It's going to be eradicated by 2028, he says. >> I like that. It's Lyme inconvenience. Lyme disease no longer exists. >> No, he also said that mosquitoes are going to be 90% down by 2028 in Washington D.C. only. >> You know what's funny about that, the mosquitoes thing? You realize that's been the issue with Washington D.C. since Washington D.C. was invented. >> Mosquitoes? >> Yes. >> Is it cuz of all the fountains?

2:45 >> No, it's just marshy. >> It's a bog. It's built in like the shittiest climate land. But it's like literally this Trump is like I bet there was like a Andrew Jackson era order for the same thing. Like America's been fighting mosquitoes in D.C. for its entire history. >> Well, there are mosquito drones now and lasers, so there are new mosquito killers. >> Okay. Wait, guys, we're not talking about mosquitoes. But I do On things we're not talking about, Dave, have you heard of the nasal rinse? I'm sorry to bring this up, but I am convinced that this is the key to fall immunity for parents.

3:20 >> Oh, yeah. >> You just have to keep nasal rinsing all the time. >> Jessica's constantly washing her sinuses out and saying that's what the Koreans do. >> It is. It's great. >> Hello. I've knock on wood had my best immunity fall immunity of like the last 5 or 6 years this year. >> There was a bunch of science that was actually done. >> It's not even It's barely fall yet. How do you have any data?

3:42 >> Oh, by now I would have been sick like three times. Like Sam suggested this. we have had multiple things flow through the house with kids. And you know, I'm not feeling like tip-top shape, but like I'm definitely not down for the count. >> And it's not the peptides for you? >> I do peptide. I've zero peptides over here. >> I'm one week in. >> Let's get the peptide update, Brit. >> I just need to talk about one thing.

4:04 >> Just one. I want the whole update. >> Guys, for 3 years I have had this crazy hip pain, lower back pain, glute pain. I went and got MRIs. It was frayed. I had like a frayed tissue. I had a lot of inflammation. I injected this Wolverine claw thing last week that has all this stuff in it like called BP 157 and blah blah blah copper and stuff. And it's gone. I promise you for the last 6 days it's been gone.

4:31 >> Oh my god, Brit, did you discover this? Should I try this? >> I just didn't know it would work that quickly. >> >> Why How did it work so quickly? >> It's great. >> It's not placebo cuz I have real MRI results. >> It doesn't work that fast. >> Well, that's what I thought, but why am I not feeling pain? >> It's placebo. >> This is not just my brain. >> But Sam, when were you convinced that yours wasn't placebo?

4:52 >> So, pretty quickly, actually. They're supposed to take a few weeks to really kick in, but I actually am as much as I'm making fun of Brit, I'm totally with you. Like this stuff works, Brit. It worked really fast for me, too. So, congratulations. Welcome to the peptide world. >> Maybe I'm a fast peptide reactor. >> We're now 50/50 peptides on the pod. >> Yeah, more or less peptides. >> We should probably make our own branded peptides.

5:13 >> Brit and I should splinter off. We can have Brit and Sam's peptide corner where we just talk about the new peptides we're trying every week. >> More or less peptides coming soon. >> I am just going to hawk nasal rinse and electrolytes over here. >> NeilMed. NeilMed nasal rinse. >> NeilMed. >> But Brit, it's like pretty good, right? >> I'm kind of with you. I don't really love how it much it hurts and itches, this particular peptide.

5:36 >> The claw initially your body doesn't like the copper at the injection site, but it's fine now. >> I moved it to my butt though, and it's better. I've got the most tissue back there, so we're good. >> Yeah, you them. >> Only tech podcast to talk about button Jackson's 5 minutes in, right here. You're welcome, audience. Okay, so Britt's on the peptide train. Dave, I'm like nowhere close to the peptide train. Are you peptide curious?

6:00 >> I'm not currently. >> I'm definitely curious. I just got really sick, so I haven't had a chance to schedule my >> So, I'm going to be the lone holdout? The The venture capitalists are going peptides? >> That's exactly correct. >> Of course we are. We live in the future over here. You're the skeptical journalist. >> I think you should get into it, Jess. >> Jess is going to be a long holdout on peptides. I think you'll eventually end up taking them, but you'll be a long holdout.

6:24 >> That's probably right. >> But Britt, Dave, and I are going to be living our best lives in the meantime. >> We're going to look so good. Look how good my skin looks with that copper in it. I'm going to have to work out like five times as much as you guys to keep up. >> Britt, Dave, and I are going to get all the thumbnail clippings by our our editorial team in more or less. >> Yeah.

6:43 >> Now you're talking my language. Now you're going to >> >> It's going to be really a shameful. >> Okay, guys. So, as we are taping this pod, Anthropic is meeting with its investors in closed-door meetings to talk about going public. So, we unfortunately do not yet have an update out of those secret meetings. >> How are you not in those meetings? >> When will we know? They're breaking for lunch now, so I'm I'm pretty plugged in, but I I don't have an update for you in the the first 2 hours that I can share.

7:13 But, the significance of this is the IPO is still a go. >> And the market's getting hammered. What a great day to be discussing this. >> We need to talk about the bigger picture here, but Anthropic still a go, but big question will be what happened to them in the third quarter. Some rumors of a slowdown. So, yeah, Sam, what's happening in the markets bigger picture? >> I don't know. I'm just looking at Google Finance. The numbers go down, except for the VIX is up a lot. So, I mean, I think people are worried, confused. Where are my IPOs? Where is my number go up?

7:46 >> Yeah, people are freaked out by the private credit that world. >> Absolutely. >> You mean Apollo? >> It's all Apollo's fault. It's always Apollo's fault. >> It's not their fault. It's just like, you know, as someone smart to me said today, Apollo's the entire market. >> Yeah. >> Here's what I think is Is that true? >> That is what a smart person said to me today. >> Well, smart people can say dumb It doesn't make it true.

8:09 >> All the time. >> Yeah, we do it professionally on this podcast. >> Our ratio of smart to dumb does very high. >> Yeah, it's very high. >> Look, it's a really interesting moment. We know, if you circle back 3 to 6 months, there was pretty high exuberance in Silicon Valley that Anthropic and OpenAI would be public companies by the end of the year. >> Well, by like September 1st. Like, that wasn't the end of the year. Everyone for weeks has been like, "This is the week."

8:34 >> I was at a cocktail party mid-August, and I was like, "Shit, this thing is coming." And I sent a lot of alarm bells off cuz there was a lot of activity. Okay, but things have changed. Markets are very uncertain big picture with everything going on. Very specifically, these infrastructure IPOs, companies like Enscale, X B Energy, the information's been all over them, are basically slowing their roll on their IPO in various phases due to pricing issues. So, the public investors You have some like firms, I believe, that have just totally done a 180 and are now doing private rounds.

9:17 So, public investors aren't like, "We're chomping at the bit for this." I think one of the big questions now is what are the private markets going to do? The private credit markets are pulling back. My guess is, honestly, that Nvidia is going to be left as the investor of last resort. >> Of the investor? >> Yes, not as public companies, but like who is going to come and do the next rounds of all these big companies that were eyeing the private markets, but maybe they could go out at far lower prices. So, I don't know. You basically the capital you have left is like traditional private capital or strategic capital.

10:01 >> Well, and at the same time the revenue growth is slowing at these big companies, Open AI and Anthropic, and so I think we had Open AI talk about they got to 50 billion, but their target was 68 billion in September, right? >> Oh my god, do we have to talk about that whole issue maybe? I don't know if we have to talk about the accounting issue. We can decide, but anyway. >> This is not an accounting podcast.

10:23 >> They're all their tokens but all the enterprise token spend is not all, but some is moving to open models and like, you know, CFOs are cracking down on spend and Meta's launching their own models and Microsoft's >> that are good. I think this is the key part. The funny part is I I was I was texting with I think David I can't remember what thread I was on this morning about like, do I want to be rich or intellectually right? It's a very hard choice because like >> Sam always wants to be intellectually right. Yeah.

10:51 >> >> It turns out I'm much more interested in being right than rich. To me it's like none of this is surprising. This is exactly what we all talked about and the reality is Meta turning on Muse as a consumer product and having such traction with it narratively and practically. But then also like their new models being good and competitive. This stuff is commodity, right? >> Plus Gemini launched all their new models, too. >> Everyone's going to launch all the things and like the consumers are already at the point where like it just doesn't matter. Like this stuff is all good enough, right? Which is classic race to the bottom. There is no lock-in.

11:25 And then you have like the Anthropic's and and Open AI's like their whole pitch has been the infinity story of one company takes all because they can't possibly justify their existence if that's not true. I think all the things are just coming home to roost that we've been talking about for months and in some cases years, right? The problem is is it's kind of like I'm ambivalent about it because the party being over makes me poorer cuz like all the numbers are correlated, right? Like the reality is there are no numbers. The numbers are just baseline other numbers, right? So it's just a really interesting moment we're in where sobriety and rationality is starting to show up, which is good, but that sobriety and rationality of the $40 trillion debt and the structure of our current markets and what the markets need and narrative capitalism all that stuff are just like not super stokeful for everyone who's around the table.

12:15 >> You're connecting a bunch of points here, right? So we're talking I was making this point that there's this concern about the infrastructure piece, which obviously is a signal of confidence way into the future. Related to that is just competition, right? I mean, let's check in on everyone's Muse usage. Where we at here? What are people experiencing? >> Oh, I can tell you one thing. I've never been a heavy Muse user and then I updated my Muse yesterday.

12:39 >> like in like two weeks. >> >> I've never in the two weeks it's existed been a heavy Muse user. >> Jess has gone full send mode on Muse, but I try to go full send. The internet won't let me, but yes, continue. >> Well, yeah, now you're getting blocked now by JP Morgan and Amazon and all kinds of things, but also I got a little creeped out yesterday. I did the update and then my starting screen was like, you by clicking this button enable Muse to use your whole computer even when you're not there, store everything like it's like all the things and I'm just like, I don't like this. I've seen this before and I think that's why I choose things like open claw or open harnesses to be my like really open and unlocked harness and giving Muse and Meta literally my whole computer is like the scariest thing ever to me. So, I've not gone that far. I think a lot of people are having this conversation right now.

13:31 I'm in a lot of WhatsApp groups and everyone's like, "How much information are you guys giving all your agents?" And some people a lot of people are going like full send mode at the same time it's very binary. A lot of people are like, "No way." >> Mews is the one I'm most willing to give complete information like information to ironically. Like I actually trust Mews the most, but I don't give any of them local access.

13:51 >> Why? >> It's an old Bob lesson my dad line, which is when I was a kid, I was scared at Disney World on a roller coaster and he said, "Don't worry, Sam. Disney's a public company, right?" And the basic point is like it's a real company, they can be sued, it's meaningful to them, they care about the security angles, right? So, I think like the problem with even OpenAI and Anthropic is if you sue them, it's not clear you'll ever get any money out from them. Again, this is goes back to the whole internalizing the profits or the value and externalizing the risks, right? They might cause a national crisis, but you're never going to be able to sue them, right? Whereas Meta is like a highly legible, profitable, suable company with everything to lose and therefore can be trusted a lot more. Same with Google. I would trust Google the same way.

14:33 >> I know. I would trust Google first. I'm waiting for Google to roll theirs out. I think the Gemini stuff was a step in the right direction, but they haven't fully connected the dots yet. >> It's the trust and then it's just it's also the whole on the other side it's like who can just do the BD deals to keep stuff open because that's the other thing we're seeing is there's nothing surprising about anything going on.

14:52 Turns out that once you see a ton of agentic traffic, which is completely commoditizing your alliance servers, you're going to turn it off, right? And so, that's the other thing that's happening is it's kind of like the early days of APIs on websites where everything was open and it was totally fun. >> Yeah. >> And then all the services grew up like, "Wait, we can't have APIs now that everyone can script against them because then we have no lock-in and no value."

15:13 And they all got quashed, right? We're just playing that game all over again. >> I just know it to everyone at Meta who's going to be mad for me saying this. I'm sorry. speak the truth. But and this isn't a fault of theirs, but like a solid 70% of my Muse use cases that I was so excited about do not work. I cannot complete things. Like the internet is just standing in my way 100% of the time.

15:40 >> The internet's fighting back. >> Like what? What's an example? Okay, I'll give you all these examples. I used to be able to say Muse, reorder my latest good good eggs order. Good eggs. Basic. Not Amazon, not grocery shop, right? 100% of the time now, it tells me that I have to enter my payment information or check out from the app. And I've now done this three times, so it's not like the browser was stalling once or twice.

16:06 I even checked cuz I know AI. I'm like, "No, you can do this for me each time." And 100% of the time it hasn't done it. My grand AGI of parenthood challenge, logging into my kids school thing, it will not do. It just won't do it anymore. And it's like, "I need you to take control of the browser and log in." And I'm like, "Why?" And they're like, "Cuz I need you to." And so again, I think it's a great product and I'm still using it as much as humanly can, but the magic of closing the loop in my core use cases is completely gone.

16:44 >> I think this is a real thing for what it's worth. >> It is still printing out the kids piano practice lessons. So email to printer still works, but it doesn't involve internet. >> To Meta's great credit, I think they've built a great product here and they spent a lot of time trying to get the details right and to do it at consumer scale, which is very difficult. And takes a lot of details. I mean, it's crazy the amount of details. Like you have to build a great model, you have to build a great harness, you have to build a great front end. You have to think about all these things that you're talking about that need to quote unquote just work.

17:19 And what's kind of wild about this product category is that it really does need to just work, otherwise you lose people and turn people. And it's I think even more aggressive than maybe the 2010 social era where people would try things and if it didn't work, they'd kind of bail. But then they get invited by another friend. And these things are like they can really do harm. Like Brit and I had a experience of this with Instinct over the weekend where she had booked and then double-checked a reservation. We had some friends coming into town. We wanted to take them to somewhere specific. And booked, double-checked the reservation. We was thought we were good. We get to the reservation or the restaurant. Turns out Instinct had booked it in LA, not San Francisco. And it's like what happens? Like I immediately I'm like this doesn't work. I'm done. Like I'm out on Instinct.

18:10 >> I got so mad at my Instinct. I was like I told it I'm so frustrated with you right now. How are you going to fix this and make it up to me? >> Just don't taunt it. Yes. >> So look, I can't not chime in here cuz like again, hilariously of all the people in the world like I had all these experiences 10 years ago with Finn. I'll tell you a really funny story which is >> Explain what Finn is for anyone who doesn't know.

18:29 >> Lick the cookie on Finn, please. >> I got it cuz it's like this is a straight up the middle. Look, 10 years ago Andrew Courtino and who co-founded Venmo and I left what we were doing and started a company called Finn. It was we called it AAI at the time or artificial artificial intelligence. And we basically said in the future they're going to be assistants that do exactly what they're all trying to do right now, but we're not there yet. So what we're going to do is figure out the product experience, build the entire thing.

18:55 They're still not but this I'll get to this. Build the entire experience, figure it all out, and then we'll slot humans in to just do the minimum that we can and chip away at it in the transaction. So requests would come in, we'd understand what they are, we'd categorize them. We had a credentials vault for your credit card. We had a graph of everything we knew as a system as well as about you personally. You'd make a request, I need a dinner reservation with my friends here or every week make sure I send Jessica flowers or whatever you want. We categorized, we'd understand, we'd have recipes for completing them. We built the entire thing end and multi-threaded, voice-activated. It was great. And people loved it. In fact, hilariously talking about booking the wrong restaurant recommendation, Marc Andreessen was a user at one point and got livid because we screwed him spin did the same exact way booking effectively on Work on just the wrong place for him and telling him the wrong thing is the exact same story, right?

19:46 And so, here's what we learned doing this. I've talked to several entrepreneurs over the years about exactly the moment we're in now and the problems. One is the biggest problem with running these assistant services is that you have to do everything and to make the service valuable. You can't just do scheduling, you have to do all the tasks. And you become liable for every service provider down the chain from you, right? That you say. So, if you say, "Hey, there's going to be a car there for you and I'm going to book it for you." It is now your responsibility the car is there even if something else screws up down the line. Problem one.

20:18 Problem two, which is associated, if you want to run these efficiently and cheaply at low margin, the problem is that some of the mistakes become massively expensive. Like if you booked someone the wrong plane ticket or someone the wrong restaurant, that's like not a small deal. Normally what you do is say, "Well, I'm very sorry, I'll pay for it." Like DoorDash says, "Hey, I screwed up your food order. No worries, I'll just pay for it." The problem is and DoorDash can do that because they take a ton of margin and food isn't that expensive. If you're booking someone's thousand-dollar plane ticket or doing something really important and you screw it up, you don't have the money, you don't have the margin to pay for the mistakes. And so, there's a fundamental problem like with running the service.

20:57 And then unlike a human assistant, which is what we're all trying to proxy, everyone is a hairline trigger. Like if you screw me once, it's so easy to fire a digital assistant effectively. There's no emotional bond. I didn't hire the person. It didn't take me a bunch of time. Like if your human assistant screws up, which they do all the time, you don't instantly fire them. Like you're like, I have to work with you. There's some stickiness. There's like this whole human But people, if you turn into a service and say we have a service for doing this stuff, the tolerance for mistakes goes to zero. Now, with Fin, people would constantly cancel and then be like, "Oh man, I really miss that."

21:32 and come back a month later, right? Once there was a mistake. problem is you're always going to run an error rate, whether it's 1% or 0.1%. You're going to have that. And that's before you get into the adversarial service abstraction component. And I don't know how these services are going to be able to do it because that that is the real reason. People always ask me repeatedly over the last years, "Why don't you restart Fin? Why don't you restart Fin? You could do it now. It'll work." And I'm like, "You guys don't understand why we stopped doing Fin." It was not that we couldn't provide a great service and not that the economics didn't work. Both of those were fine. The problem was what does it mean to take on that level of responsibility as a service and can you make the economics of mistakes work?

22:10 >> But at some level it does feel inevitable, too. And so the question I think is like what gets us through this period. And Sam, you've written about sort of treaties and you think doing treaties at scale. Like I do feel like it is inevitable. That we're just in an intense early adopter growing pain period. That's how it feels to me. You can't stop this. >> I think what's inevitable is the death of the web. I think what's inevitable is like a bunch of like the simple shim like types. Yes, you will obviously use these things, right? And for a bunch of stuff. And they'll be good at a bunch of stuff. But it's it's The problem is going to be there's going to be like a holy war of access to services and a lot to figure out about mistakes and what you do and don't trust them with and how you operate that I think is just going to be really messy for the coming years.

22:56 I don't I think it's very hard for startups to survive what's coming. >> Are the harnesses going to have to strike a ton of specific deals with the biggest service providers? >> That's what we were talking about last week. >> That was the framework. The treaty thing is interesting. I think there's another piece I was thinking about this week about this. So, the treaty thing is look, everyone's going to shut it down because you got to be top of wallet have a brand or you have no value, right? If I say I need a plane ticket and instead of even having to click on links, it's literally a perfect agentic marketplace for the lowest price, you're screwed. Like no one's going to survive in the travel industry that way.

23:31 But, I actually have it another piece I've thought of recently about this, which is I think the way APIs work is going to change a lot. Cuz right now the way an API works is you get a key, maybe it's trusted, maybe it's not, and you have a set of things or a capabilities you have access to in a given service provider. I actually think it's going to move to a world where every API is actually a back and forth negotiation for access, right?

23:55 The way it'll work is you'll show up at a company like a Amazon and say, "Hey Amazon, I'm Instinct here. I'm News here. I have this great customer over here. His name is Dave. He's awesome. Like you want to work for Dave. Dave's really rich and great and he's going to spend a lot of money. I'd really like you to to let me do X, Y, and Z." And then Amazon's going to say, "Oh, interesting. Well, I'd love to know X, Y, and Z about your person you're working for." And then the API will respond back and forth and negotiate the level of access and what they get to do.

24:25 So, I think it's going to be like a constant negotiation between service providers for passing access through where the value becomes if you're a high-quality brand, almost like Hollywood. If you have Ari Gold as your agent, you're like, "Okay, this guy's going to keep playing. He's trustworthy and his clients are good. So, I'm more likely to do business with you." Whereas if you show up as like an unwashed agent out of nowhere and you're like, "Hey, I'm some open-source agent you've never heard of." I'm going to be like, "I'm not going to talk to you."

24:51 >> Well, don't you think it's going to be more like a credit score? Dave will all have an agent score and it's like the score of our agent times ourselves, and how trustworthy we are, how much credibility we have, influence we have, how much we buy. >> The S&P 5 million of or 5 billion. >> It's like clout for agents. I have good clout. >> Well, kind of, but I don't think it'll be a score. I mean, if you were the company who could pull that off in centralizing the scores, that would be a really interesting thing to achieve, is the upshot.

25:20 >> I feel like it's going to be this pretty bad middle ground, Sam, where something like this is going to happen. >> I feel like it will happen. >> It's going to be like some shitty Well, I think they'll be like It's like FICO. >> Yeah. >> Guys, I saw three things this week of like multi-agent harnesses her a harness of harnesses. Have you seen all these things? Why do we talk harnesses? No one cares about harnesses. So, let's drop harness.

25:42 >> I don't even know what a harness is. >> It's like you can put your Grok and your Muse and your Open Claw and your everything in in one UI, and then you can talk to all of them in different ways, and I'm like, now we're doing a turducken. I don't understand what's happening. >> >> I also like to think of it this way. What would Amazon have to build to get me off this use case of like using these other services, right? So, I mean, and I do believe that personal agents will be a thing, and there's space for that market. But right now, I'm in the mode of literally how much brain activity do I have to spend on buying more paper towels, and I'm going where that number is as close to zero as possible. And if it's Amazon, great. So, I actually when Muse made me log into Good Eggs for the 13th time, I was like, how's good old Rufus? Now, I think they've changed the name, thankfully, but Rufus was Amazon's agent. It's in the app.

26:41 And I was just checking, and Rufus, or whatever it's called now, actually still works to take a picture and buy something. >> What idiot named it Rufus? >> That's a terrible branding. thought they'd changed it. >> They did, but to me it's always Rufus. Like I said, I don't >> Isn't Rufus a sci-fi throwback of some kind? >> It's not Rufus. >> This is why tech people are not marketing people. >> It's Alexa for shopping, thank god. What it always should have been. But anyway, it's not that bad.

27:10 >> A Rufus sounds like calling Homer Simpson. >> Yeah, anyway. So that's like where we are at this moment. And I also Can I bring this to a slightly different place, which is As a journalist, I have views about this book. What do you guys think about the incredible seesawing of narratives around who is the golden child in the space and who is doomed? I just cannot get over every day Alex Wang is either the best entrepreneur to have ever graced the United States of America and beyond, or he's like a horrible person. Why is he running a lot? Not horrible, but like does the entire industry recognize how quick to build people up and tear them down?

27:52 >> I don't know, you're the journalist. Shouldn't you Shouldn't you be the one to go find like isn't it your industry? >> How many articles does it take to tear them down? >> No, but we're not doing this. >> I think this is just the metabolism of social media. >> But it's to the point that it's nonsensical. >> I understand that, but that is the story, Jess. The story is that the metabolism is so fast now. Everybody rises and falls intraday.

28:16 >> Intra-hour. >> It's like day trading your personal brand these days. And whatever you're going to do today, nobody's going to remember next week. Like, yeah, there's people doing podcast tours all week and then like, you know, you forget about it, move on to the next thing next week. And it is the story. >> Someone told me they were busy They were like, "Oh, sorry, we were busy with like the Sam Altman interview." I was like, "Wait, which Oh, that one. The one that was like a disaster with Vanity Fair. I forgot about that."

28:42 >> interesting thing I saw on Twitter this week I talked about like the state of this where Jess is like why are we doing these like hyper cycle narratives coming largely from media and the internet? It's kind of how unhinged Gen Z media is. >> Yeah, that was by the way say I'm going to be my other take on this which is that it's Gen Z culture. >> What part is Gen Z culture? >> These like internet accounts that are posting these wild videos about Muse as like sperm and like these crazy psychedelic videos. Have you seen some of these?

29:15 >> Wait, what? No, Muse is sperm? What does this mean? >> The little character, you know, like the little >> The little Muse character has found its way into like >> Oh, that he's a sperm? >> It's been memed to death, yeah. >> The Muse meme cannon is incredible. And so basically, the thing for me that I think is happening is in some ways we're now the old people. So, we're here being like, "Wow, not only is no one pursuing truth."

29:39 >> I'm like, "Where's my quill and ink?" Like that, you know? >> Well, but that's kind of what all we're saying like cuz like then the the medium is all the hyper narrative is this person is the greatest ever and the worst ever. And then all the young people are like, "This is obviously all ridiculous and stupid." >> Yeah, that's the whole thing. >> And so their entire media culture is now like psychedelic AI weird that like makes no sense.

30:05 >> Okay, but what is a business decision maker to do? >> You have to play the game. >> More memes. >> >> You can play the game, but what's true and what's important? >> It doesn't matter. I think that's to to like Mark's great credit he hired Alexander Wang who was a Gen Z entrepreneur who knew how to play this game. He's playing it excellently, you know, like it's exactly how to play the game. I remember seeing there was a study at some point a couple years ago about this in high schools and Gen Z culture and things. And like they literally do believe that the game is so rigged and everything is so messed up that they might as well just like it and just like do memes crazy and do things that don't make sense because the world that came before them was a world that made too much sense.

30:52 And so it's a big reaction to that. >> What ages are Gen Z exactly? So they're >> Oh, I know. It's for people born between 1995 and 2010. So, 31 to 16. >> Yeah. And I do think like I I saw a really funny video on the internet. It was also about It's punk rock in another form. >> This person was like the 30-year's trading at like 5%. Should I be worried? And like the counter was like, "No, you have no assets. You're poor. This is not your fight."

31:17 >> >> And then it's just like And it's like this whole thing about how like And the whole point is the economy's rigged. All this is crazy. So, like let's just make weird memes, right? And like I just think understanding that that cultural undercurrent is there. Like maybe what's happening right now in some ways with the stock market and some of these even IPOs, the Anthropic That was like the last hurrah, the most extreme version of winner-take-all meaningful moment, right? Where like, "Oh my god, Anthropic opening eyes will be the only company left in the world." And there's a bunch of people our age who get sucked into that narrative and believe it to some degree. And they get really into it and that becomes like the dominant narrative that capital flows. But then there's new wave, right? Of like, "Oh like all this AI is fine. Lots of stuff will change. None of this is the greatest or the worst. It's all just whatever. Let's make weird memes." is kind of like culturally the moment we're entering where like Gen Z takes over effectively.

32:14 At which point no one knows how to trade anything, right? Cuz it's like, like what are we doing? >> This feels scary for our futures. >> No, I think that's why I'm making an argument is you have to take the gestalt of it all. It's like you have to pay attention to the whole thing, not isolated things inside of it. You kind of have to really interpret it as like the whole story is like it's the Crocs on stage and the crazy shirts and the like all the same thing. It's punk rock by a different name. No, it's an absolute rejection of the prior generation.

32:42 >> But, what if you aren't punk rock? Asking for a friend. Like, how do you grow a business if you're decidedly not punk rock or not Gen Z? >> Well, but Jess, this punk rock stuff is just marketing. At the end of the day, we talk about business a lot on this pod, and we talk about the realities of these business models, and like we can debate that and get into that really deeply, but what we're really talking about here on the cultural side, this is just marketing stuff, right? Like, how do you pierce through?

33:11 >> But, Dave, I think it is more than a marketing. I think there's something in the middle I'd say about it, which is I think there is like an undercurrent of this that will drive business and culture and who wins and who raises capital and stuff. So, I don't think it's just like some isolated thing off to the side. >> But, isn't narrative just marketing, Sam? I mean, I guess that's what I'm saying. Like, who raises capital as a marketing game, right? Like, if you establish the narrative >> But, that does matter for business. I just don't think you can dismiss it too much. Like, I think there is a cultural shift that will define a lot of how the world works going forward that's happening here. There'll be a reaction to it. Just for your sake and business readers, like plenty of people will still believe in like a return of rationality and sanity and normalcy, and there'll always be a counter revolution.

33:51 There'll be plenty big to support truth-seeking businesses. We kind of went from like, "Oh, wait, COVID, now this AI super cycle of it's going to kill us all." Like, I think it's all just like this sweep, right? Of nothing matters. This is all wild. Let's all gamble, and where are we going? And like, by the way, maybe China loves this because they're like, "America is getting so culturally unhinged at the youth that we're just going to dominate it all." I think it's like really hard to miss the hallmarks here.

34:19 >> No, I think you're absolutely right. It's happening. It's sort of wild to watch in real time. And I think people who are playing this game well, it's sort of working to them, but I also think it will work to a point, like if they're not building great products and building trust, then they won't, you know. >> I think in history we've seen that there's the CEO or the founder who's the punk rock leader, but then they hire in the loaded guns, the Sheryls, the Erics, the people behind them to like help build the business. So, maybe there's a combination of that.

34:52 >> Or maybe like Mark Benioff has to hire like a Gen Z meme lord to make Salesforce. >> Yeah, I think every company needs a Gen Z meme lord. >> People are going to try all this >> But what if it's not authentic to you, right? Like I don't know. >> Does the information need a Gen Z meme lord, Jess? Is that what you're thinking about right now? >> No, but like I I we couldn't have a Gen Z meme lord. Like it just wouldn't >> No, you totally could. You could create a brand that's like a magazine that's a different cover. You could definitely do it. You wouldn't do it under your main brand. It's like The Economist.

35:23 >> You should totally do that. I like that idea for you. >> Well, but it is interesting. I do see these memes go around. Like the latest one, Brett, you and I were on about who's a good hang and a fun time based on how much beer they drink following the cheeky pint parents. And I'm reading this thing, had beers with half the people on the list, and I'm like, this is completely wrong. All the people listed as heavy drinkers have not touched alcohol in a decade, and actually the best hangs, like the people I'd want to have a beer with, are over there. But I'm like, I could spend an hour coming up with a clever meme refuting this meme.

36:01 >> the meme lord, Jess. >> But Jess, news flash. Just a quick news flash for you. >> >> It's like you have to be on peptides to be a meme lord. >> Yeah, yeah. >> Here's the thing. Jess is a meta meme lord. She's like a meme lord above the meme lords. >> But look, I'd actually say like Jess, I'm not stressed for you or your what you want to do or belief in your systems and values of rationality. I think you're going to be fine. Because the reality is that's the other thing that's going on is just like subcultures are getting really deep. There are plenty of people that are going to be super deep into rational real subculture. You just didn't stay true to that, right?

36:33 >> Where are the truth subculture >> You are the truth. That's 100% what you are. >> I'm happy to own that subculture. >> Like I think the thing that it's always been true and you've known for a long time is like most people don't care about the information or truth. It just happens that people who do care about the information and truth and what's actually going on are like the richest most valuable customers, right? And so like you just have to be okay with the fact, which I know a lot of journalists aren't. Like this is a New York Times problem. Actually, the vast majority of the world doesn't care, right? They just want an entertaining story. They're very nihilistic. They're going to make crazy videos about whatever. And then there's a small number of the people who at least today have run things do care a lot. And like I think that's going to be the split. The question is whether the meme lords get in the building, the nihilists end up running things or not, right? That's the real question.

37:21 >> Yeah, and not only are the people who are in the truth subculture wealthy off accurate information, but they are also powerful in the decisions they make, too, for now. >> Historically. >> That's your point. Yeah. That could change. Speaking of which, Guy, we only have a couple more minutes. I'm really excited and only mildly nervous to be interviewing Barry Weiss at WTF that I announced today. And it is related to all of this because if you think about it, so Barry is the editor-in-chief of CBS News.

37:52 Definitely the most controversial person scrutinized in media. There are publications, I hope that none of you met people read, it tech media industry trade substacks that write about her 24 hours a day. I mean, it's insane. >> She wished they're almost certainly supported by >> Yes. >> certain lobbies. I mean, like >> her meetings are recorded, right? Anyway, so for a year she hasn't said a single thing. Yountville, October 27th, 28th. She's going to say a lot. So, I'm very excited, but I'm also I'm just bracing for every level of criticism like you know, it's just so so turbulent.

38:35 >> You're bracing for for you. It's going to be great for you. >> No, it's going to be great for you. This is just becoming a meme lord. >> There are people in X who've already decided that I'm either going to be too hard on her or too soft on her or too like people I mean bots basically. I like but already just by having literally added her to the speaker page. >> Yeah, which is how you grow your account.

38:53 >> There are people with strong opinions. >> Yeah, and then a week later no one will care about anything cuz they have forgotten. >> If you're not canceled by at least some people, you're not doing anything. >> Yeah, no worries Jess. Just go hard. >> Of course I'm going to go hard, but I also think like people should be interested in what she actually has to say in her mind about her own freaking strategy instead of people just reading about leaked audio meeting.

39:15 >> Are you worried that this off-the-record conversation with only women will be biased and that only women will be able to share the words? >> You think I'm doing it None of this is off-the-record. It's so on the record. >> No queen Sam, no queens. >> No queens. >> >> Down with the matriarchy. >> I have to decide what my media strategy is and let's face it. I am who I let in, who I let out. You know. Got to have a little perks to this job, but no no I This is very much on the record.

39:46 >> I don't have my t-shirts with me, my down with the matriarchy t-shirts. >> Just have Muse listen to in real time create Gen Z memes for you. >> Oh, that's a good idea. >> Oh yeah, just have a little bug in your ear. >> We've been thinking about a new app to launch. We should do the information meme app. That's >> That's apparently how like Alex Wagner was saying on X the other day that's how he does it.

40:07 He just has like his Muse generate all the memes. >> You should hire this guy Steve Jobs, but it's Steve Jobs who made the best by far meme a thing of Muse I've ever seen. I'll send you his link. >> Oh, I've seen that. But wait, we had one more topic, which is sort of related because I'm also interviewing her at WTF. But Brent, we want to talk about Bumble going private. >> Did you know this when she was being booked?

40:31 >> No, I did not know this when she was being booked. >> It's a $1.3 billion deal to go private, right? >> Is there debt in that or is it all equity? >> No, I think it's there's some debt in it. They gave some details on it. It's at least I think half debt. >> Yeah, I mean, I get the sense that they building dating apps are hard. You watched most of them get consolidated into Match Group.

40:53 >> I will say I know Whitney personally and she is like a beast. >> Nobody has the slightest clue how to solve this problem, by the way. >> I think this is a really tough category and I think the public market pressure doesn't make it easier. So, our friend John and Robbie, his partner, like took it private. >> This is a really hard product challenge. >> John's great. I don't know Robbie as well, but John's amazing. Here's my only funny thing.

41:16 Their holding company is called Ithaca. I think it's really funny that Ithaca is now in the business of suitors cuz like >> Just getting into Greek mythology. >> >> Sam, explain the joke to the audience. >> Well, Ithaca is Odysseus' homeland. >> It's also the homeland of Cornell. >> Okay. So, it's just really funny because like the whole thing is like Odysseus comes home and there are all these suitors for Penelope, kind of like suitors on Bumble.

41:43 But then Odysseus kills them all. You can't kill all the suitors. Those are your customers. >> Oh my god, this is a cautionary tale. But no, in Bumble, the woman is Penelope is the suitor because Bumble, the women reach out first. The women have control. >> But Penelope's not interested in any of them. That's her whole thing. She's just waiting for Odysseus. >> We're going to have to rewrite history or something cuz >> >> There's some issue with this narrative here. Like I feel like it's just a funny acquisition from a narrative perspective.

42:15 >> This was Ithaca's first thing, right? We have to see what their second one is and if there's a trend line. >> It's going to be a lot of work. >> So, Ithaca which again is Sam and Dave said a holding company started by John Hagerman and Robbie who was at Robbie was at Sequoia? Yeah. >> Yes. >> Their thesis is to take things and bring frontier intelligence to businesses that can leverage it to be way more successful, way more profitable, right?

42:40 >> Forward-deployed holding company. >> Forward-deployed holding company, right? >> There are many of these out there right now. >> There are many of them, but they're in like accounting and like roll-ups, right? And but like Thrive has one, like a lot a lot of people have them. >> Offline holdings, we have one. >> On what level makes a ton of sense? I just sometimes think it's easier to build things, to be honest. >> From scratch? >> Yeah.

43:02 >> Bumble Bumble has a big brand, it has a ton of users. >> Yeah, that's true. >> I do think data matters in dating, probably, but By the way, I worked on Hinge for over 7 years and this is really difficult. >> You did? How did I miss that? >> I was on the board of Hinge until we sold it to Match Group with Justin and those guys. So, I've like worked in dating apps and it's extremely difficult and no one has come up with a new mechanic that works.

43:31 >> Actually, Choo Choo Choo has. >> Yeah, it's just not at scale yet. >> You mean a mechanic like swiping? I don't think I've ever been on a dating app. >> There's this type of dating app that gets you to meet in person and it's like hockey sticking. >> Yeah, yeah, there's a bunch of these. >> Yeah, so, you know, offline is the place to be. >> I've been pitched a few dating app mechanics I think are pretty innovative and AI does help in certain interesting ways. I agree it's a hard category.

43:56 >> Maybe they'll just turn it into only an OnlyFans competitor, Sam. How would you feel about that? >> Well, but at the end of the day, you have to compete with Instagram because Instagram is just a dating app. >> It's not just I don't date on Instagram. >> For Sam, it's a shopping, it's a commerce app for Sam. >> >> It's an everything app. To me, I've been kind of on the fence about it. Like I I really think that Dust is right historically in a lot of categories.

44:17 It's way easier to go to Novo, especially when you're like humans and like all these people like But in certain things like there are just like dating, I actually backed this very small dating agent-y dating startup like a year ago with a tiny angel check just to because it's a cool idea. And the getting traction is so difficult, right? And the reality is that like >> Liquidity is so hard. Like you have to have it's a marketplace and you have to have liquidity on both sides of the marketplace. And that's actually my big question about Bumble is it appears their liquidity has dramatically disappeared. And so whether or not they can get an advantage to get distribution again and drive liquidity on both sides of the market is like extremely hard.

44:57 It's harder than social networking. >> Do you mean having hot people on both sides? >> No, just having people on both sides. >> Do you think they rank their people based on like matchability scores internally? >> Internally, absolutely. >> Yeah, of course they do. >> Isn't that how dating apps work? No, but like do you think internally they're like oh, we've got 40% real like hotness here versus Hinge has 60%? >> Yeah, they know everything. >> That would be really funny if a public dating app was like we're doing very well because of our 100 million users, 90 million of them are really hot. Or another one's like we have a problem.

45:32 It's like we have an enormous network, but it's all the most ugly people. What do we do with this? >> By the way, this is not dissimilar to there's like an adjacent business story here, which is that like you know, Airbnb and Booking.com are like the tale of two wildly different business strategies in the same market. And Bumble is kind of like Airbnb. They stuck on their same mechanic for 5 years, didn't work out very well, stock went sideways. Match Group on the other hand bought every single vertical dating app in the game. So they have Hinge, they have Mit-Match, they have eHarmony, they've got whatever, they everything.

46:06 >> They have like the farmer one, farmer dating. >> Yeah, they went completely horizontal across a ton of different verticals. And so, they've been driving a much better business. They also aren't doing that well, but it's an interesting business strategy question as to like which way you have to play in order to like get all these different verticals. >> It'll be fun to watch. Smart people taking on a hard problem. >> Yeah, totally. >> I'm rooting for them.

46:28 >> Someone needs to do it because it's kind of sad situation out there. It's actually like a really important mission. >> No one likes to date anymore. It's really sad. >> Well, we will be watching. >> They're just making memes. >> The memes are so good, though. >> Jesse, are you going to buy the new Apple Home View Center thing? >> Don't need it. I didn't know if it was a meme. It's the Facebook Portal / an iPad on your kitchen table.

46:50 >> I have six of those things sitting in a closet from four different companies. Why do I need a fifth? >> Yeah, but are they connected through all your iOS devices? Cuz you've got your photo rolls and Siri AI, which is better now. >> I'm trying to get screens out of my kids' face. I want screens out of their face. I'm not putting them in my kids' view. >> Apple would you But to that point, you know what I would buy from Apple?

47:15 Is like an Apple printer. >> I'd buy a button to buy more paper towels. I want to reduce the friction in commerce. >> They used to make printers back in the old days. >> I know. I had a dot matrix printer. >> Bring back the Image Writer. >> If you had an Image Writer, 50,000, and it like was a beautiful modern Image Writer, but it like was smart about what it printed for you and like kept you off your phone. That I would be You could do banners around your office with little dot paper.

47:44 >> That's a very Gen Z coded thing from the day. It would be fun to bring back the printer, and that would be sick. >> Maybe Mod Retro should do that. >> I just heard the printer automatically going off cuz of my one of my Muse tasks still working really well, and I was delighted by it. I just felt in my physical environment it was great. >> Jess, wouldn't you want like image writer 10 million? Wouldn't you want it to make like a slightly different chime for different people so you know whose paper is up? Like there's all these like coolest things you could do.

48:13 >> Guys, we're just teaching our kids that like the only way through the world is through like an Apple screen. I don't want them anywhere near me. >> Well, no, it's through an Apple printed piece of paper. >> Whatever. You already have an Alexa and a Google We have all the other things. I'm just going to unify it all. >> There's not a single one in our house. There's not a single one. They're all in closets.

48:31 >> about? I've seen Google things in all your houses. >> They are not visible. They are all put away in cabinets. >> I literally have two phones on me in front of me like right now. >> The Morans over here are going to go full Apple home and we'll report back in like 3 months and tell you how much awesome more better our life is. >> I don't even like Apple and I have more Apple products than anything.

48:50 >> No, no, it's not having It's specifically the era of the HomePod with the screen. It's the Alexas with the screens, the Googles with the screens, the Facebook portal, remember that puppy? >> The most tech people that I know are the most anti-screens. It's really funny. >> It's not funny. There's like a canary in the coal mine, Jess. I am so excited I'm going to finally see the Elizabeth Holmes movie this weekend. Sam's seen it. >> Yeah, got to see it.

49:14 >> Oh my god, guys, I'm so excited to see it a second time. I may be the first person in the world to see it twice. >> This is so exciting. Like I cannot wait. Will we be able to do spoilers on the pod? I don't know, but like >> I think again this comes out It'll be an interesting question cuz you'll see it, Jess, and you'll feel the art and the importance and decide whether it's the rare thing that is worth people just seeing.

49:35 >> Oh, I can keep my mouth shut when it's out. >> everybody's going to go. >> Dave, I hope the rest of your birthday is full of fun and minimal nasal congestion. We're thinking of you, buddy. >> Yeah, thanks, Jess. >> Hang in there. Okay, and dear listeners, we'll see you again next week for another episode of More or Less. Bye. >> If you enjoyed this show, please leave us a virtual high five by rating it and reviewing it on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast.

50:07 Find more information about each episode in the show notes, and follow us on social media by searching for @moreorless, @davemorin, @lesson, @jlesson, and as for me, I'm @brit. See you guys next time.